Flowmeters provide information about materials being transferred through a conduit, or flowtube. For example, mass flowmeters provide an indication of the mass of material being transferred through a conduit. Similarly, density flowmeters, or densitometers, provide an indication of the density of material flowing through a conduit. Mass flowmeters also may provide an indication of the density of the material, and therefore an indication of the volumetric flow rate.
For example, Coriolis-type mass flowmeters are based on the Coriolis effect, in which material flowing through a conduit becomes a radially-travelling mass that is affected by a Coriolis force and therefore experiences an acceleration. Many Coriolis-type mass flowmeters induce a Coriolis force by sinusoidally oscillating a conduit about a pivot axis orthogonal to the length of the conduit. In such mass flowmeters, the Coriolis reaction force experienced by the traveling fluid mass is transferred to the conduit itself and is manifested as a deflection or offset of the conduit in the direction of the Coriolis force vector in the plane of rotation.